While last year’s Cannes might have seemed a tad underwhelming at the time, it was a standout compared to the later festivals of the year. Oscar contenders Carol and Son of Saul kicked off their campaigns while Sicario, Mad Max: Fury Road and The Lobster were some of the other notable premieres.

Woody Allen's Cafe Society to kick off Cannes 2016

Read more

Woody Allen’s Cafe Society has been confirmed to open this year’s festival, but what other films could be on the list? Before the full schedule is announced next month, here’s our roundup of likely inclusions.

Dead certs

Jodie Foster’s last film as a director, the Mel Gibson puppet drama The Beaver, might have been an unusual misstep, but her latest – a starry thriller with George Clooney, Julia Roberts and Jack O’Connell – promises to reinstate her as one of the leading female directors working within the studio system. It combines an old-fashioned premise (disgruntled psycho holds celebrity hostage) with a fresh spin (he’s a victim of the financial recession) and will likely play out of competition.

Most of the press surrounding Sean Penn’s latest film as director has been linked to him directing his now ex-girlfriend Charlize Theron, but he’s now hoping the rather earnest-sounding drama (his first behind the camera since 2007’s Into the Wild) will bring him some credibility after his critical and commercial flop The Gunman. It stars Theron as the director of an aid agency in Africa and her relationship with a relief aid doctor, played by Javier Bardem. Issues!

Having debuted four of his films at the festival already, including the jury prize-winning Mommy in 2014, it’s essentially guaranteed that 27-year-old director Xavier Dolan will unspool his latest in May. It’s his starriest to date, with Marion Cotillard, Gaspard Ulliel, Nathalie Baye, Léa Seydoux and Vincent Cassel, and tells the story of an awkward family reunion.

The Dardenne brothers at Cannes. Photograph: Dominique Charriau/Le Film Franc/WireImage

Ever since Rosetta won the Palme d’Or in 1999, the Dardenne brothers have become a reliable mainstay of the festival, going on to pick up another four prizes. They’ll likely be heading there again this summer with this drama about a young doctor trying to find out the identity of a woman who died after refusing surgery.

What was Spielberg doing gobblefunking around for so long before he did a Dahl? His take on Roald’s The BFG will mix live action with Mark Rylance, made big and giant by CGI. Apparently already confirmed at Cannes, Spielberg will likely take the pop slot: the berth reserved for the great (Mad Max: Fury Road) and the ugly (Pirates of the Caribbean, Spielberg’s own Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) of candy-coated American cinema. Should be a whizzpopper.

More memories of mummy from Pedro Almodóvar. Based on the short stories of Alice Munro, the director’s 20th film stars Emma Suárez as Julieta, looking back on her youth (Adriana Ugarte plays her in adolescence) and wondering where her relationship with her daughter went quite so wrong.

Shia LaBeouf who stars in Andrea Arnold’s first American film. Photograph: Mark Blinch/Reuters

Roll up for your regular dose of LeBeouf lunacy as King Disrupter anoints Andrea Arnold’s new drama about a hard-partying magazine sales crew, scouring the Midwest for subscriptions. Shia is joined in Arnold’s film (her first shot outside the UK) by Arielle Holmes, the star whose role in Heaven Knows What was based on her experiences as a homeless drug addict.

With Woody Allen’s Cafe Society opening, it’s looking to be a major festival for Amazon, who picked up this intriguing new horror from Nicolas Winding Refn. He’s previously debuted both Drive and Only God Forgives on the Croisette and his latest, about beauty-obsessed women in LA, is likely to follow.

Olivier Assayas shows Kristen Stewart around his latest drama. Stewart plays Maureen, an underling in the Paris fashion world who starts experiencing phenomena more spooky than ‘How does she eat so little and not pass out?’ Stewart won a César for her last collaboration with Assayas (Clouds of Sils Maria) so the partnership’s a good fit.

Jeff Nichols swaps the supernatural for the super-natural as Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga star in the director’s lo-fi drama about a real life couple, Richard and Mildred Loving, who in 1958 were exiled from Virginia because of the state’s laws against interracial marriage. The couple took their case to the Supreme Court, which ruled in their favour, disarming similar legislation across America.

In the balance

Paul Verhoeven making a return to the thriller genre is luridly exciting in itself, but pairing with Isabelle Huppert, who plays a rape victim who stalks her attacker, makes his latest seem like a noteworthy distraction from some of the dustier alternatives on the Croisette. It’s been described as “extremely erotic and perverted”.

Jim Jarmusch’s last film, the unconventional vampire tale Only Lovers Left Alive, hit Cannes in 2013, following a Grand Prix win in 2005 with Broken Flowers, and Ghost Dog, Dead Man and Mystery Train all premiering at the fest. It’s a safe bet that his latest, a low-key drama about a bus driver played by Adam Driver, will also make an appearance.

Cannes loves Loach. Something about his films, which tell working-class stories about pluck and courage that extol the virtues of state support, really chimes with the private festival that welcomes millionaire superstars and operates a strict hierarchy for press access. COUGH. Anyway, this one’s about a joiner who falls ill and needs the NHS to help him.

Cristian Mungiu, as he won the Palme d’Or in 2007. Photograph: Eric Gaillard/REUTERS

Romanian film-maker Cristian Mungiu has been a favourite of the fest since his first feature film Occident appeared in the Directors’ Fortnight. He went on to win the Palme d’Or for the harrowing abortion drama 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days and his follow-up Beyond the Hills won best screenplay and best actress, shared by its two leads. Hopes are high for his new film, about parenting in a small town.

After a misfiring English-language debut (Stoker) and a train-based thriller (Snowpiercer) that zipped us by, Vengeance trilogy director Park Chan-Wook returns to home turf, albeit with foreign topsoil. His take on Sarah Waters’s Fingersmith is set in Korea in the 1930s, when the country was ruled by Japan.

James Franco in character for Zeroville. Photograph: Tiziana Fabi/AFP/Getty Images

James Franco’s very weird, sporadically wonderful take on William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying defied consensus on its debut at Cannes 2013. In the three years since, Franco has been involved in close to 20 projects. It’s a crap shoot as to whether Zeroville, in which he stars as a theology student wandering through 1960s Hollywood, is any good. If not, don’t worry too much: one Franco project falls, another five rise to take its place.

Dark horses

Originally slated for a late December release, Oliver Stone’s Snowden biopic, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt in the lead, was yanked from the schedule and pushed back nine months. It’s not a great sign, although Foxcatcher saw a similar date change and, after a Cannes debut, went on to be a major Oscar contender. A similar trajectory could occur here.

Disney have often indulged in glitzy Cannes launches for their films, including last year’s Inside Out, and with a June release date for their Finding Nemo sequel, it’s possible this will also follow suit. It reunites the voice stars of the 2003 original, Albert Brooks and Ellen Degeneres, and intriguingly adds Diane Keaton and Idris Elba to the cast.

Michael Shannon and Werner Herzog last tangoed in 2009. Here the pair hotstep it to south America (no-one’s said which bit yet) where a supervolcano is about to blow the world to bits. What’s going to save us? Love, of course. More specifically, the love between an idealistic scientist (Veronica Ferres) and the head of a villainous mega-corp (Shannon presumably).